Is This YOUR Leader

LeaderThink®
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"Gettin' good players is easy. Gettin' 'em to play together is the hard part."
Casey Stengel
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How proud are you of the key players on your team? You have great people working with you, you know. But does your leadership style encourage them to work together as a team, or to compete with each other for your attention and favor? One of my clients is a very smart guy but a terrible leader. Let's call him Jake.

Jake inherited a team in which half the members were really strong contributors and half were inconsistent in achieving tangible outcomes. Jake's strategy was to ignore the lower achievers,withhold information from them and hope they would resign or leave. He spent time one-on-one with each of the team members he considered high-achievers and gave them lots of praise. But he rarely shared a team vision and he never allowed team members to work together to achieve a goal. In fact, he fed different (and often conflicting) information to different team members which prevented them from collaborating on projects or supporting each other's efforts. Before long, this team began to implode. I was called in by Jake's boss to design and facilitate a 6-month team building strategy after a few resignations. And others who relied on the team for information, guidance and support were complaining that Jake was the only one who had the information they needed and that he didn't trust others on the team to make any decisions or provide any services without his personal approval.

Some people thought Jake was a control freak. Others thought he was insecure and in over his head. But Jake was just a guy who had been promoted every 2-3 years because he was good at managing ideas, and great at managing himself. It wasn't totally his fault that he was not very effective accomplishing results through other people; his previous bosses had never held him accountable for developing and leveraging relationships. Jake had to learn the difference between managing and leading. It wasn't easy for him to guide, coach and trust others; but he is learning how to do it. And along the way he was surprised to discover that some of the people he considered weak members of the team turned out to be star players once they had the information and encouragement they needed to do a great job! Great leaders inspire each individual to perform at a high level while generating team effort as well.

Think . . . and act . . . like a leader!
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Let us be examples of leaders who are trustworthy, caring, courageous and fair.